Scott Stevens or Chris Chelios?

Big Phil

Registered User
Nov 2, 2003
31,703
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This is a tough call. Chelios, Stevens and even MacInnis are three guys who are very similar in the way of career value.

At the end of the day you'd have to lean on the side of Chelios. He's the only one out of the three who once in a while is a top 10 defenseman on some lists.

Stevens scared the beezwax out of you. I know someone said Chelios had more intensity but I disagree. Stevens in my mind clearly did and that isn't a knock on Chelios either. As for the playoff career I give Stevens the edge over Chelios. The impact that man had on the opposition was peerless at the time. While he did get 11 points in the 2000 playoffs, I conclude that had he scored 5 points he'd still have won the Conn Smythe.

Chelios is close to that level in the postseason too. In fact all around season by season, game by game I would take Chelios. He seemed to control the pace of the game a bit more. He had the better offensive instincts and we all know Chelios was a mean nasty SOB as well. He'd bowl over his mother to win also.

Out of the three Cups each player won, there is little doubt in my mind Stevens was more central to those Devils championships than Chelios to his three. But the Norrises, the all-stars and the insane longevity (although Stevens was pretty good there too) are too enticing to pass up. Chelios by a bit.
 

vadim sharifijanov

Registered User
Oct 10, 2007
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This is a tough call. Chelios, Stevens and even MacInnis are three guys who are very similar in the way of career value.

At the end of the day you'd have to lean on the side of Chelios. He's the only one out of the three who once in a while is a top 10 defenseman on some lists.

Stevens scared the beezwax out of you. I know someone said Chelios had more intensity but I disagree. Stevens in my mind clearly did and that isn't a knock on Chelios either. As for the playoff career I give Stevens the edge over Chelios. The impact that man had on the opposition was peerless at the time. While he did get 11 points in the 2000 playoffs, I conclude that had he scored 5 points he'd still have won the Conn Smythe.

Chelios is close to that level in the postseason too. In fact all around season by season, game by game I would take Chelios. He seemed to control the pace of the game a bit more. He had the better offensive instincts and we all know Chelios was a mean nasty SOB as well. He'd bowl over his mother to win also.

Out of the three Cups each player won, there is little doubt in my mind Stevens was more central to those Devils championships than Chelios to his three. But the Norrises, the all-stars and the insane longevity (although Stevens was pretty good there too) are too enticing to pass up. Chelios by a bit.

intensity is probably not the right word to describe what i was trying to say about chelios. stevens was intense as hell and as competitive as anyone. what i meant was about their respective styles of play.

stevens, in his NJ years anyway, was really positionally sound. he would take himself out of position at times to make a big hit, but otherwise he was always in the right place. if you come across the middle or if you go into stevens' areas of the ice (in front of the net, in the corners), he's on you, cross checking you, knocking you down. but if you retreat to the perimeter, someone else would cover you (not that holik was any picnic either).

but chelios would follow you around the ice. which is a different kind or degree of relentlessness. i didn't see him before his first norris year so i can't imagine how he co-existed with jacques lemaire. if you're cam neely, you enter the zone and chelios is on you. you turn over the puck, he goes the other way, either skating it or headmanning it. everytime you come the other way, there's chelios again. he would give you the extra whack or punch to the head but his unbelievable anticipation and understanding of where the play is going allowed him not to get caught.

in different ways, chelios and stevens were incredibly demoralizing players to play against. that separates them from macinnis, who was fantastic defensively, especially later in his career, and easily the best of the three offensively. macinnis was a really technical positional guy, like lidstrom. he was big and strong, but not really physical, certainly not anything like stevens or chelios' physicality. but mac stopping you with angles and a quick stick is not demoralizing in the same way as stevens knocking you on your ass everytime you skate into scoring areas or chelios sticking you over and over again all night. my point was that chelios throws you off your game because you become more concerned with going after him than with your game. but i guess all told i'm not sure that's any more distracting than watching over your shoulder for stevens. i still think chelios was the more exhausting player to play against, though stevens hit to hurt, which can't be discounted.

another thing about chelios is that he was a really underrated rusher. offensively, i think he could have been housley if he'd wanted to. but he cared about winning.
 

theguru

Registered User
Mar 17, 2010
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Toronto, ON
no doubt, scott stevens...not too many forwards want to go up against a d-man who drops shoulders/hips like that in a seven game playoff series. would you?
 
Nov 26, 2010
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NJ
I'd take Chelios, just because he had a more well rounded game. But Stevens is no fluke though. I saw him play alot during his time with Jersey, and I've never seen anyone change the game like he did with open ice hits.
 

RabbinsDuck

Registered User
Feb 1, 2008
4,761
12
Brighton, MI
Really.

Who was like him? Pronger is similar type of defensman from current players. And now is your turn - name similar D like Stevens from current players... Or Orr from past. Obviously Orr made everything on higher level than Chelios, but Stevens was arguably better than Orr in his own zone.

Scott Stevens was in second half of his career most feared man in history, I mean during a play in own zone. Forwards think of him first, before they stepped into zone. Similar to Hasek. And if you can get yourself into enemy´s head before he even do something, you are one of the very best.

Konstantinov.
 

BubbaBoot

Registered User
Oct 19, 2003
11,306
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The Fenway
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Oh, tough call.....I'd lean toward Stevens. There wasn't too many defensmen that was as tough and nasty in front of the crease than him. I can still see his patented two-handed / up the back to the neck crosscheck to this day.
 

TheMoreYouKnow

Registered User
May 3, 2007
16,385
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38° N 77° W
I don't know where *that* extent of Stevens love is coming from. The guy was a great player but really, some posts here make him sound like Orr and Shore rolled into one with Harvey's DNA added. Chelios and him are pretty close but gee people make it sound like he was the first D-man who could take guys out.

Also when it comes to the playoffs, Chelios's best performances probably came in years when his team didn't win the Cup, Chelios was a dominant machine in the 89 Habs run and the 92 Hawks run. He was nevertheless an important player in both the Habs 86 Cup win and the Wings 02 Cup win obviously.
 

Hanji

Registered User
Oct 14, 2009
3,155
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Wisconsin
I don't know where *that* extent of Stevens love is coming from. The guy was a great player but really, some posts here make him sound like Orr and Shore rolled into one with Harvey's DNA added. Chelios and him are pretty close but gee people make it sound like he was the first D-man who could take guys out.

Also when it comes to the playoffs, Chelios's best performances probably came in years when his team didn't win the Cup, Chelios was a dominant machine in the 89 Habs run and the 92 Hawks run. He was nevertheless an important player in both the Habs 86 Cup win and the Wings 02 Cup win obviously.

This.

I think Stevens is getting a tad overrated here. Gotta go with Chelios on this one.
 

Blades of Glory

Troll Captain
Feb 12, 2006
18,401
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California
Stevens was a dominant playoff performer, but he never had to carry the offensive load for the Devils en route to the Cup Finals the way Chelios did in Montreal during 1989 and Chicago in 1992. Chelios had the same defensive responsibility as Stevens, but also had the offensive responsibility of Scott Niedermayer, as both the primary puck-mover and the anchor of the top PP unit. His 1992 playoffs was one of the most individually dominant of all-time, a fact that I think gets lost in the Cup Finals loss to Pittsburgh. I would argue that Chelios' 1992 playoffs was a far more dominant all-around performance than Stevens' 2000 Smythe-winning playoffs, when he was basically a one-zone player.

I don't think there's much argument who the better all-around defenseman was. Chelios won 3 Norris Trophies during Ray Bourque's prime. Between 1984-85 and 1995-96, a 13-year span, Bourque won 5 Norris Trophies, Chelios and Coffey won 3 each, and Brian Leetch won 2. His 1992-93 season was amongst the most dominant by a defenseman in history. 282 PIM, 73 points, and winning the Norris by a margin of 105 votes over Ray Bourque. My issue with Stevens is that he had only one season of being a dominant all-around defenseman (1993-94), after which he was not a factor in the offensive zone. If the main argument for Stevens is based off his presence inspiring fear into opposing forwards and thus impacting the game, I will argue that Chelios was every bit as feared for possessing a nightmarish side to his game as Stevens was for his open-ice hits. Remember what the 40-year old Chelios did to an Art Ross-level Todd Bertuzzi in the 2002 playoffs? By Game 4, he had Bertuzzi more focused on trying to beat him up than scoring goals.
 

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